Spoke to Hub Mail Routing

I have a client that has 2 Domino servers - a hub and a spoke on the same Notes Domain
All Users log into the Spoke server and when they send mail the spoke transfers the mail to the Hub's mail.box and the hub sends it out.
The problem comes when the users want to send mail to their HQ in another country also running a Domino server but on another Notes Domain. This Notes Domain is specified as an ajacent domain and the relevant connection document does exist. The Hub comes back with an error that it could not transfer the mail to the HQ server as the loop count has been exceeded and the recepient's forwarding address must be checked in the address book. The Recipient has not got a forwarding address. When the Recipient's Internet addresss is used then the mail does get to him but not with Notes Mail.
I then attempted to get the mail out of the spoke server to go directly to the HQ hub but that only works when the local hub is shut down then the spoke routes the mail. Otherwise it routes the mail through the hub and obviously the same error comes through. SMTP on the spoke is not enabled.
Can someone please help.

I think I can guess how the problem created itself (I've had a similar experience at my previous job).
A company starts out with independant branches that are not connected, each having its own private

Are you using IP on both hub-servers ? If so, see if you can ping the destination server, might be a routing problem. If you can ping the server using its IP address, but not using its common name, make sure you defined the IP address of the destination server in the connection document. (under the advanced tab)
Also try a mail trace to try to determin where the error occurs :
1. From the Domino Administrator, click the Messaging - Mail tab.
2. If necessary, click Tools to display the tool bar.
3. From the tool bar, click Messaging - Send Mail Trace.
4. Complete these fields, and then click Send:
To: The mail address of a particular user
Subject: The subject of the trace
Send delivery report from: Choose one:
- Each router on path to receive a delivery report from each router on the path
- Last router only to receive a delivery report from the last router only

I looked on the Lotus site and found tech note 150003 quite close to my problem. The only difference was that the notes domain did not match the host domain. I did try options 1 and 2 however but to no luck. In my situation does the 2 servers NOTES domains match each other so the server thinks it should send mail to the user on the server's own domain.

Wath now?
Do you have two Notes domains with same DomainName but different addressbooks? Do this two NotesDomains belong to same TCPIP domain (for example: .company.com )? Do you have Configuration documents in your names.nsf (and if not; why not?)?

Wich exact release of R5?

'cose above R5.0.3 you have to delete some Domain documents ("ForeignSMTPDomain") not needed in R5 names.nsf; They are allowed to be created for coexistance with R4.x but disturbing R5 SMTP trafic and Notes mail roting.

That is correct the Notes domains are for the same TCPIP Domain. I do have Configuration Documents but advise on what exactly they must say would also be very welcome. As I previously said there is no problem to send mail to internet address (for example user@company.com) Just Notes Mail to the same user. Therefore I did believe in the beginning it could have something to do with the Configuration document.

The Hub server runs release 5.07 and the spoke release 5.03.

I do have foreignSMTPdomain documents in the names.nsf because some other servers in other countries run still on ver 4.6

I would suggest posting some of the data from your config documents that are relevant.
If two seperate NAB's are in existence for the same domain name, you are either going to have to change one of the Domain names and all config documents, or combine the address books.

Another option is to change the mail template or config docs to automatically add @@company.com for all mail that does not have a @ already.

we had solved this "loop count exceeded..." problem, and after this I beleave to have got a good understanding wath is going on. Generaly it is allways a good idea to bring all facts from your point of view on the table before discussing dependencies. But in this case I would ask you to go step by step trough my evaluation (if you got time for this ;-), and not to bring too much details into the game... O.K.?

If sySexpert has better proposal, than I prefer not to waste my time confusing all the rest with my ideas. <|;-)

then let us procede like this: I give you my proposal for this two config documents for spoke and hub and you tell me wath you have different and in case of special reason why so and not like proposal.

For spoke:
In the tab ConfigurationSettings=>Router/SMTP=>Basics:
Number of mailboxes:
SMTP used when sending messages outside of the local internet domain: Enabled
SMTP allowed within the local internet domain: All messages
Servers within the local Notes domain are reachable via SMTP over TCPIP: Always
Address lookup: Fullname then Local Part
Exhaustive lookup: Disabled
Relay host for messages leaving the local internet domain: hub.company.com
Local Internet domain smart host:
Smart host is used for all local internet domain recipients: Disabled
Host name lookup: Dynamic then local

In the tab ConfigurationSettings=>MIME=>ConversionOptions=>Outbound:
Lookup Internet address for all Notes addresses when Internet address is not defined in document: Enabled
Perform exhaustive lookups when converting Notes addresses to Internet addresses: Disabled

For the hub exactly the same, except for:
Relay host for messages leaving the local internet domain: your.smtp.gateway.tointernet.com

Internet address lookup:
If disabled or no match, Enabled
convert as follows:
Local part formed from: Short name
Notes domain(s) included: None
Notes domain(s) position: Left of '@'
Notes domain separator: . - period
Address example: JMD@acme.com

As you see, you are not allowed to enter your real Internet domain (company.com). This would cause the SMTP delivery loop. Instead of the Internet domain enter your MX host name as SMTP domain name <|;-) This was the main trick!

...you are good consultant ;-) with above proposals you can get work for about one year at inexperienced customer sides...

and please to not get too serious this all :-)
my assumption is that everyone discussing here is adult enough to know how serious this proposals are. If the proposals help, than is good, if not, than look for better one..

hey man, do you notice that we are talking along without comments from questioner?

but let us asume your 2000 users from above. Let half of them recertify by the other NotesDomain certifier (with same hirachical name !!! ) and distribute to this users. Never be sure again when one user calls for support is his/her user.id file old or new one. Have you noticed that this installation had not even managed to completely upgrade to R5. I am preaty sure that the reasons are not application design ugrade problems but efforts in distributing severel hundred (not thousends) of users with new NotesClients and user.id files (with all side effects like loosing desktop icons, different versions of R4.x, different fileservers where user and program files reside and so on). And you say he should do that to avoid problems. Realy?

to Wahlf: I would try to route mail in SMTP betwean the domains by setting as above proposed in Config docs. Dont know how far your migration/rolout plans are, but I would wait for Rnext.

I think I can guess how the problem created itself (I've had a similar experience at my previous job).
A company starts out with independant branches that are not connected, each having its own private network and therefore notes domain. For simplicity reasons (at that point) they use the same name for their notes domains.
At some point in time, management decides to link the different sites together, so people can share files over a global network. And this is where the problem starts, now you have to merge those different domains into one big domain.
I have to go with SysExpert on this one, either they should have renamed the domains or merge the domains into one domain. It's tough and a lot of work, but you best bite the bullet to prevent future problems. If you don't do it, you will always be putting out fires. It's not a stable environment to work with, as it is.

What is needed is a good deployment plan that takes care of upgrades of servers, clients, distribution of new ID-files etc.

And this doesn't have to take a year to do, either ;-)

Regards,
Jerrith

P.S.: Just for your information, guys. Not intended to start a discussion ! Anyway, I'm still looking at this question to see what solution Wahlf will go for.

you can not make it worser as now is: Wahlf has no time, so experts exchange their theories :-))

So, here my theory: He is a consultant supporting only small parts of the Domino installation and is not responsible for the overall strategies. This second NotesDomain could be as you say a former branch which now has to be integrated into the company. But my assumption is far worser: they are same company, same department, starting with R5, allowing useres to make test on this... And before you can do anything against it you have to turn this halfplanned Domain into production.

I see your point, zvonko. I was merely stating the optimum solution (in my humble opinion). However this is not the issue of Wahlf's question, I'm curious as to how the problem will be solved. Might be interesting for the future.

acording to problem solution is my strategy not to change to much on the instalation. Main point is: spoke can deliver mail. My assumption is: it is because of R5.0.3 and not higher. To bring higher releases to route mail like R5.0.3 do you can use this notes.ini setting:
RouterIgnoreForeignSMTPDomains=1

Hi guys - The client's head office in Taiwan has instructed now that a second spoke is created for mail routing to solve the problem. We had to set the server up and they would access remotely to administer and fine tune it further. I have advised them of your recomendations but they feel that they want to go the way of the second server.

Sorry for the extremely long delay, My customer is very happy to run a third server for mail purposes only and is not experiencing any problems as yet with it.

The problem is that I could not put your advise to work and I am very sorry for that. Could you however advise how I could mark this question if possible so in the future if needed I can get back to it for reference purposes?

one option to have this thread accessible is: never accept an answer. It can happen sometimes that ComunitySupport makes some houskeeping and your longrunning question is deleted (er even worser: anyone of commentors gets the points :-)
The other option is: you accept this my comment as answer. It stays in the repository for further comments and all experts commenting above get a note when new comments appear.
Of corse you can take also another expert from above as answer. But keep in mind that very few expert answer questions where no points are to earn (except joke comments :-))

If you want to keep the discussion going when you get to it, just leave the question open. Customer support, will normally first post a comment when it's doing some housekeeping to ask the involved experts on how to proceed, so I wouldn't worry about the question getting deleted.
If you just want to keep it for reference purposes, just accept the comment you think was most useful as an answer and it will be saved in the PAQ section of EE for future reference.
If you'd like to split the points, post a question in the Community Support forum with a reference to this question.

What dark period?
The remarks here that seem a bit offensive, were IIRC only made to joke around (going from the emoticons available).
Anyways, I was just kidding about the points :-)
Would be nice to get to the next level and be called a "guru", though...

No problem. When you get again time, then we can talk about it again.
But small note; we CV's and the Mods do not switch off the notification emails for cleanup questions.
That does say, we get tons of notifications in regular cleanup processing.
Our attention is reserved to special notes from Mods to CVs and back.
So kind ThankYous are more a noise in that communication.
You see?
Thank you :)

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